Manhattan's Columbus Day Parade organizers invited Mayor Zohran Mamdani to march on Fifth Avenue in October, a gesture of goodwill that has divided Italian-American leaders, some of whom say the mayor has done nothing to earn a spot in the procession.
Christopher Loiacono, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the Manhattan parade, told the New York Post that invitations went out last week to Mamdani and other elected officials. As of Friday, the mayor had not responded. Loiacono framed the move as an attempt to open a door that Mamdani has spent years slamming shut.
The foundation president said the group wants to "broker a better relationship with City Hall." But the list of grievances Italian Americans hold against Mamdani is long, specific, and well-documented, and not everyone in the community shares Loiacono's appetite for diplomacy.
The friction dates back at least to 2020, when Mamdani, then running for a state Assembly seat in Astoria, Queens, posted an image on social media of himself flipping the middle finger at a Christopher Columbus statue in the neighborhood. His caption: "Take it down." That post resurfaced during last year's mayoral race and became a flashpoint with Italian-American voters across the five boroughs.
Then, in July, Mamdani's administration released a city map of immigrant enclaves that omitted Little Italy, a nationally recognized historic district, along with other established ethnic neighborhoods. The mayor later insisted the list was not "exhaustive" and that future versions would include Little Italy. The damage, critics said, was already done.
Councilwoman Joann Ariola, a Queens Republican, did not hold back about the invitation. She told the Post:
"This is a man who has made it clear that he doesn't respect Christopher Columbus, and he doesn't even think us enough of a group to put on his immigrant enclave map."
Ariola added a pointed suggestion for the mayor: "Why would he want to be there? To get pictures and pretend he's a paisan now? He should sit this one out."
Mike Crispi, president of the Italian American Civil Rights League, was sharper still. He called the parade invitation a weak gesture and said Mamdani owes the community far more than a stroll down Fifth Avenue.
Crispi told the Post:
"I think that he should be coming to Italian Americans hat in hand, groveling for an apology for all the insulting and hateful rhetoric that he's put on our people over the last couple of years."
He predicted the mayor would face a hostile reception if he showed up. "He knows he'll be booed off the block very quickly," Crispi said. That prediction carries weight, Mamdani was booed off the stage at an NYPD event on Staten Island earlier this year, lasting less than a minute before the crowd drowned him out.
Crispi also took aim at the mayor's public persona:
"This is the mayor who likes to be a social media guy and do his little curated videos, but in real life, he's loathed by the real people who built the city and who have been in the city for a long time."
The Manhattan parade, scheduled for October 12, is not the only one testing Mamdani's willingness to engage. Carlo Scissura, vice chairman of the Federation of Italian American Organizations of Brooklyn, said his group also invited the mayor to march in the Brooklyn Columbus Day Parade on October 10 along 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst. Mamdani had not responded to that invitation either.
Scissura struck a diplomatic tone. "We invited all the elected officials; we always love having the mayor of the City of New York at our parade," he told the Post. The Brooklyn parade will be led by Council Speaker Julie Menin, a moderate Democrat who has repeatedly clashed with Mamdani as he has tried to push his far-left agenda through the Council.
Mamdani's record of antagonizing communities that built New York extends beyond Italian Americans. He became the first sitting mayor to skip the Israel Day Parade since its founding in 1964, Fox News reported, breaking a tradition held by every mayor for more than sixty years. Two major Jewish organizations, UJA Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, declined invitations to Mamdani's Jewish Heritage event at Gracie Mansion in response.
That snub came as antisemitic incidents in New York City nearly tripled, with Jewish residents, roughly 12 percent of the population, targeted in more than half of all hate crimes. The pattern has drawn sustained backlash over Mamdani's anti-Israel rhetoric and raised questions about whether the mayor views certain communities as politically expendable.
Not every Italian-American leader dismissed the invitation outright. Councilman Frank Morano, a Staten Island Republican, said he hopes Mamdani shows up, and uses the occasion to repair what he has broken.
Morano told the Post:
"I hope [Mamdani] attends... and uses this occasion to rise to the moment, show some respect for our heritage and demonstrate that he values our community."
"He should understand why this holiday matters to us," Morano added. It was the closest thing to a conciliatory voice among the Italian-American officials quoted, and even Morano's words carried the unmistakable subtext that Mamdani has, so far, failed to show that understanding.
Loiacono, for his part, said the Columbus Citizens Foundation remains hopeful. "We hope he will be more open to [working] with the Italian community," he told the Post. Whether that hope is well-placed depends entirely on a mayor who, as of Friday, had not bothered to pick up the phone.
The Mayor's Office did not return messages from the Post seeking comment.
The Columbus Day standoff is the latest in a string of episodes that have put Mamdani at odds with New Yorkers who expect basic civic respect from their mayor. He and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew bipartisan condemnation after they were caught grinning during the reading of the names at a September 11 ceremony. Separately, Mamdani handed a symbolic 9/11 pen to a former al Qaeda defense lawyer, drawing fury from victims' families.
Italian Americans are not asking Mamdani to agree with them on every point of history. They are asking him to stop erasing their neighborhoods from city maps, stop posing for photos with his middle finger aimed at their heritage, and stop treating their community as beneath his attention. So far, the mayor's answer has been silence.
A city with eight million people and a hundred communities does not run on ideology. It runs on respect, and a mayor who cannot muster it for the people who built New York has no business marching in their parade.